TO MADAME BRILLON, OF PASSY
致帕西的布里隆夫人：
YOU may remember, my dear friend, that when we lately spent that happy day in the delightful garden and sweet society of the Moulin Joly, I stopped a little in one of our walks, and stayed some time behind the company. We had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind of little fly, called an ephemera, whose successive generations, we were told, were bred and expired within the day. I happened to see a living company of them on a leaf, who appeared to be engaged in conversation. You know I understand all the inferior animal tongues. My too great application to the study of them is the best excuse I can give for the little progress I have made in your charming language. I listened through curiosity to the discourse of these little creatures; but as they, in their national vivacity, spoke three or four together, I could make but little of their conversation. I found, however, by some broken expressions that I heard now and then, they were disputing warmly on the merit of two foreign musicians, one a cousin, the other a moscheto; in which dispute they spent their time, seemingly as regardless of the shortness of life as if they had been sure of living a month. Happy people! thought I; you are certainly under a wise, just, and mild government, since you have no public grievances to complain of, nor any subject of contention but the perfections and imperfections of foreign music. I turned my head from them to an old gray-headed one, who was single on another leaf, and talking to himself. Being amused with his soliloquy, I put it down in writing, in hopes it will likewise amuse her to whom I am so much indebted for the most pleasing of all amusements, her delicious company and heavenly harmony.
亲爱的朋友，您或许还记得，那天我们在美丽的穆兰乔利花园中度过了一段愉快的时光，在那迷人的环境与温馨的陪伴中，我曾在散步途中停下脚步，落在了队伍的后面。当时，我们被带领着观看了一种小型昆虫的无数骨骼遗骸。这种小飞虫叫蜉蝣，据说它们的世代在一天之内便完成了出生与死亡。我偶然在一片树叶上看到了一群活着的蜉蝣，似乎正在热烈交谈。您知道，我精通所有低等动物的语言，对它们的研究过于投入，这也是我在您的迷人语言上进步不大的最佳借口。出于好奇，我仔细倾听这些小生灵的谈话。然而，由于它们生性活泼，总是三三两两一起叽叽喳喳，我只听懂了些零碎的话语。通过这些片段，我发现它们正在激烈争论两位外来的音乐家，一个是“表兄”，另一个是“蚊子”，它们就在这些音乐家优劣的问题上耗费时间，丝毫不在意自己短暂的生命，仿佛它们确定能活上一整个月一般。多么幸福的种族啊！我心想，你们的政府一定明智、公正、宽厚，因为你们没有公共不满需要抱怨，也没有其他争议，唯一的争论居然是外来音乐的优缺点。我转头看向另一片树叶上单独待着的一只灰白头发的老蜉蝣，发现它正在自言自语。我被它的独白逗乐了，于是将它记了下来，希望这段文字也能给我最感激的那位朋友带来一点乐趣——那位让我沉醉于她令人愉悦的陪伴和天籁般音乐的您。
"It was," said he, "the opinion of learned philosophers of our race, who lived and flourished long before my time, that this vast world, the Moulin Joly, could not itself subsist more than eighteen hours; and I think there was some foundation for that opinion, since, by the apparent motion of the great luminary that gives life to all nature, and which in my time has evidently declined considerably towards the ocean at the end of our earth, it must then finish its course, be extinguished in the waters that surround us, and leave the world in cold and darkness, necessarily producing universal death and destruction. I have lived seven of those hours, a great age, being no less than four hundred and twenty minutes of time. How very few of us continue so long! I have seen generations born, flourish, and expire. My present friends are the children and grandchildren of the friends of my youth, who are now, alas, no more! And I must soon follow them; for, by the course of nature, though still in health, I cannot expect to live above seven or eight minutes longer. What now avails all my toil and labor in amassing honey-dew on this leaf, which I cannot live to enjoy! What the political struggles I have been engaged in for the good of my compatriot inhabitants of this bush, or my philosophical studies for the benefit of our race in general! for in politics what can laws do without morals? Our present race of ephemeræ will in a course of minutes become corrupt, like those of other and older bushes, and consequently as wretched. And in philosophy how small our progress! Alas! art is long, and life is short! My friends would comfort me with the idea of a name they say I shall leave behind me; and they tell me I have lived long enough to nature and to glory. But what will fame be to an ephemera who no longer exists? And what will become of all history in the eighteenth hour, when the world itself, even the whole Moulin Joly, shall come to its end and be buried in universal ruin?"
“我们这一族中的博学哲人，早在我之前的时代便认为，这个浩大的世界‘穆兰乔利’本身，最多只能维持十八小时。我认为这种观点有一定的道理，因为赋予万物生命的伟大光体在我有生之年中，已经显著地向我们大地尽头的海洋方向倾斜。等它走到尽头，熄灭在包围我们的水域中，整个世界便会陷入冰冷与黑暗，必然导致普遍的死亡与毁灭。我已经活了七个小时了，这已经算是高寿了，相当于四百二十分钟的时间。然而，能活到如此长寿的我们少之又少。我见证了一代又一代的诞生、繁盛与消亡。我现在的朋友，是我青年时代朋友的儿女和孙辈，而那些朋友如今早已不在了！我也将很快随他们而去；按照自然的规律，尽管我尚且健康，但我已不能指望再活超过七八分钟。如今，我在这片树叶上辛苦积累的蜜露还有什么用？我无法活着享用它！而我为我们这片灌木上的同胞居民所参与的政治斗争，或是为整个种族谋福利所进行的哲学研究，又能留下什么成果？在政治上，如果没有道德，法律又能起什么作用？我们现今的蜉蝣族群，在数分钟之内便会像其他更古老的灌木族群一样腐化，因此也将变得同样悲惨。在哲学方面，我们的进步又是何其微小！唉，艺术无涯而生命短暂！朋友们安慰我说，我将留下一个名声，并且他们告诉我，我已活够了自然和荣耀的寿命。但对于一只不复存在的蜉蝣来说，名声又有什么意义？在第十八小时世界终结、‘穆兰乔利’完全毁灭时，所有的历史又将何去何从？”
To me, after all my eager pursuits, no solid pleasures now remain, but the reflection of a long life spent in meaning well, the sensible conversation of a few good lady ephemeræ, and now and then a kind smile and a tune from the ever amiable Brillante.
对于我来说，在经历了所有热切的追求之后，唯一留下的真正愉悦，是对一生怀善度过的反思，与几位善良的蜉蝣女士的智慧对谈，偶尔还能得到我永远敬爱的布里朗特那温柔的微笑与一曲动人的旋律。
Benjamin Franklin
20 September, 1778